HC1052 Individual Assignment Guidelines
T2.2014
• Due Date: Friday, 26 September 2014
• Assessment Weight: 20%
• Students are required to write an article critique of 1,500 words
• The article that you must read and critically assess is:
o Hutchinson, A. & Boxall, P. (2014), ‘The critical challenges facing New
Zealand’s chief executives: implications for management skills’, Asia
Pacific Journal of Human Resources, vol.52, pp.23-41.
o This article has been posted to Blackboard under ‘Assignments & Due
Dates’
• The critique should be:
o Written in standard essay format
o Be typed or word processed in Times New Roman or Arial, 12 Font
Size
o Be formatted with 1.5 line spacing
• The Article Critique that you write must:
o Identify a relevant Thesis Statement or Question from the article
o Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article based on the
Thesis Statement
o Provide your own viewpoint – what do you believe?
o Do you agree with the thesis statement of the article or don’t agree?
o State your key points and Why? Why not?
o Provide evidence and research from other academic sources (at least
3) to support and back your argument
o Show use and understanding of class concepts learned in class that
relates to the subject of the article
o A solid conclusion to your essay
PLEASE NOTE: This assignment is NOT just a summary of the article. It
is a critique to show that you understand what the author is trying to
convey and that you can show your own critical analysis and assessment
of the arguments for and against, as well as provide evidence to support
your own opinion on the subject.
• Include a list of appropriately formatted references and also show in your
essay where you used them (using standard Harvard Referencing Style)
• The 20% of marks will be allocated for showing:
� Critical analysis of the article (6 marks)
� Understanding and comprehension of the case study article (5 marks)
� Format, excellence and strength of your argument/conclusion (4 marks)
� Appropriate referencing( Harvard referencing style) and use of
additional research (3 marks)
� Use and inclusion of terms and concepts from class lectures (2 marks)
The critical challenges facing New Zealand’s
chief executives: implications for
management skills
Ann Hutchison The University of Auckland, New Zealand
Peter Boxall The University of Auckland, New Zealand
This paper reports a 2012 survey of 265 New Zealand chief executives, representing 27% of the
nation’s largest organisations. It examines their most critical challenges in the current environment,
discusses the implications for New Zealand’s management skills, and considers how human resource
practitioners can support such skill development. The results reveal a complex environment of
changing markets and technologies in which the support of stakeholders, including key funders, is
more guarded and conditional; i ...
1. HC1052 Individual Assignment Guidelines
T2.2014
• Due Date: Friday, 26 September 2014
• Assessment Weight: 20%
• Students are required to write an article critique of 1,500
words
• The article that you must read and critically assess is:
o Hutchinson, A. & Boxall, P. (2014), ‘The critical challenges
facing New
Zealand’s chief executives: implications for management
skills’, Asia
Pacific Journal of Human Resources, vol.52, pp.23-41.
o This article has been posted to Blackboard under
‘Assignments & Due
Dates’
• The critique should be:
o Written in standard essay format
2. o Be typed or word processed in Times New Roman or Arial, 12
Font
Size
o Be formatted with 1.5 line spacing
• The Article Critique that you write must:
o Identify a relevant Thesis Statement or Question from the
article
o Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article based on
the
Thesis Statement
o Provide your own viewpoint – what do you believe?
o Do you agree with the thesis statement of the article or don’t
agree?
o State your key points and Why? Why not?
o Provide evidence and research from other academic sources
(at least
3) to support and back your argument
o Show use and understanding of class concepts learned in class
that
relates to the subject of the article
3. o A solid conclusion to your essay
PLEASE NOTE: This assignment is NOT just a summary of the
article. It
is a critique to show that you understand what the author is
trying to
convey and that you can show your own critical analysis and
assessment
of the arguments for and against, as well as provide evidence to
support
your own opinion on the subject.
• Include a list of appropriately formatted references and also
show in your
essay where you used them (using standard Harvard Referencing
Style)
• The 20% of marks will be allocated for showing:
� Critical analysis of the article (6 marks)
� Understanding and comprehension of the case study article (5
marks)
� Format, excellence and strength of your argument/conclusion
4. (4 marks)
� Appropriate referencing( Harvard referencing style) and use
of
additional research (3 marks)
� Use and inclusion of terms and concepts from class lectures
(2 marks)
The critical challenges facing New Zealand’s
chief executives: implications for
management skills
Ann Hutchison The University of Auckland, New Zealand
Peter Boxall The University of Auckland, New Zealand
This paper reports a 2012 survey of 265 New Zealand chief
executives, representing 27% of the
nation’s largest organisations. It examines their most critical
challenges in the current environment,
discusses the implications for New Zealand’s management
skills, and considers how human resource
practitioners can support such skill development. The results
reveal a complex environment of
changing markets and technologies in which the support of
stakeholders, including key funders, is
more guarded and conditional; in which there is an ongoing war
for talent; and in which business
5. models need to be reframed to respond to fast-paced and
ambiguous change. The data suggest three
fundamental management skill needs: managing uncertainty and
renewal, managing stakeholders
and business partners, and managing people and limited
resources. Now, more than ever, human
resource specialists need to focus on the development of
managers, and take part themselves in
development processes that bridge internal and external
boundaries.
Keywords: chief-executive opinion, management development,
management skills, New Zealand
Correspondence: Dr Ann Hutchison, Lecturer, Department of
Management and International
Business, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019,
Auckland 1142, New Zealand; e-mail:
[email protected]
Accepted for publication 18 August 2013.
Key points
1 New Zealand’s chief executives report a fast-changing,
ambiguous environment
characterised by constrained funding.
2 In this environment, managers need capabilities in managing
uncertainty and
organisational renewal.
7. survey of chief-executive opinion in New Zealand, examining
what chief executives in the
private, public and not-for-profit sectors perceive as the most
significant issues in their
current environment, and to examine their implications for
management skills.
This is a timely moment for such an assessment. Since the
global financial crisis (GFC)
of 2008–09, New Zealand, like other nations, has experienced
lower rates of economic
growth. Its government has used increased borrowing to make
up the deficit in the
national accounts and has carefully reviewed public expenditure
across the board (The
Treasury 2012). The situation has been complicated by the need
to rebuild Christchurch’s
economic and social infrastructure following the sequence of
earthquakes that began on 4
September 2010. New Zealand does have opportunities for
growth, including in its world-
class primary industries, in its attractive tourism sector, and in
high-value manufacturing
and services, but New Zealanders have continued to emigrate in
search of better career
possibilities, putting at risk the country’s skill base. This is a
trend that has concerned gov-
ernments, of all political stripes, but which they have struggled
to arrest.
In this light, our aim is to present what New Zealand chief
executives currently report
to be their greatest challenges, and to discuss the implications
for management skills.
Given what is known about the business environment, what
managerial capabilities are
8. important, and how can human resource (HR) specialists
support their development? We
base our discussion on a recent survey of 265 chief executives
from New Zealand’s largest
organisations. We begin with an outline of key features of New
Zealand’s organisational
landscape and a review of existing research on its management
capabilities. This leads into
an analysis of the survey’s quantitative and qualitative data and
to an examination of the
implications for management development and the HR function.
New Zealand organisations and management capabilities
New Zealand is a small economy of 4.5 million people remote
from international markets.
Apart from the dairy industry, in which New Zealand is a world-
class player, it has few
organisations of global reach. In 2011, New Zealand had no
companies in the Fortune
Global 500 while Australia, with a population of 23 million, had
eight, and Singapore, with
a population of 5.2 million, had two (CNN 2011). The average
New Zealand organisation
is a small or medium-sized enterprise. Although many
multinational firms have branches
in New Zealand, a smaller percentage of New Zealand
employees (44.8%) work in firms
with at least 100 employees compared with employees in the
USA (64.4%) and in the UK
(60.2%) (Mills and Timmins 2004). As might be expected, the
average size of New Zea-
land’s large firms is smaller than in the biggest Anglophone
countries: ‘the average number
Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 52
10. advantages. They are less
bureaucratic, tend to provide individuals with greater job
autonomy, and can argue that
New Zealanders have an enviable quality of life (Gilbert and
Boxall 2009). An empowering
kind of management style seems to be commonplace in New
Zealand’s smaller, more
informal organisations (Macky and Boxall 2008). None of this,
however, is stemming the
‘brain drain’. In the year to 31 August 2012, 53 900 people
migrated from New Zealand
to Australia while only 13 900 moved in the other direction
(Statistics New Zealand
2012). There are now some 650 000 New Zealanders living in
Australia (Department of
Immigration 2013), where they have a high level of success in
the labour market. Based on
census data collected in 2006, ‘83% of New Zealand-born men
and 70% of New Zealand-
born women’ resident in Australia were employed, ‘compared
with 72% and 62% for the
comparable Australian groups’ (Department of Labour 2010, 5).
Given the small scale of New Zealand industry, and the
challenges the country faces in
retaining its educated workforce, what is the calibre of New
Zealand management? Does
the country have the management talent it needs? This is
increasingly the question raised
in relation to New Zealand’s productivity performance. As the
New Zealand Productivity
Commission notes, New Zealand ‘slipped from one of the
wealthiest countries in the
1950s to now around 26th in the OECD’ (New Zealand
Productivity Commission 2013).
New Zealand has one of the lowest rates of productivity growth
12. due to underperformance
of New Zealand’s industries rather than a difference in the
industrial structure of the two
countries’ (NZIER 2011, ii). While capital intensity plays a
role, the report attributes most
of the difference to ‘the quality of management, organisational
innovation, the production
process, and the quality of labour and capital’ (NZIER 2011, ii).
This assessment, it should
be noted, masks important sectoral differences. New Zealand’s
agricultural and utility
sectors have strongly outperformed their Australian
counterparts, as, remarkably, has New
Zealand’s much smaller mining sector (NZIER 2011, 5). It is in
services – including
wholesale, retail, hospitality, finance and construction – that
New Zealand’s relative per-
formance has been much weaker. Given that services employ
around 70% of the work-
force in both countries, this is a serious issue for New Zealand
(NZIER 2011, 6).
As the NZIER’s (2011) analysis implies, part of the
productivity problem must relate
to management capabilities, and surveys often point to
shortages of managerial resources
in New Zealand (e.g. Statistics New Zealand 2007). An analysis
of management skills in
New Zealand manufacturing firms has been conducted by Green
et al. (2011), using a
methodology developed by academics at the London School of
Economics and consul-
tants at McKinsey & Co. The approach relates management-
reported practices in opera-
tions, performance and people management to productivity
indicators. They rank New
13. Zealand at 10th place in the 17 countries studied so far, arguing
that:
while some of New Zealand’s firms are as good as any in the
world, there is a substantial ‘tail’
of firms that are mediocre . . . This is a key differentiating
factor between New Zealand and
better performing, more innovative countries. (Green et al.
2011, i)
Green et al. (2011, iii) conclude that ‘New Zealand
manufacturers would benefit by
focusing much more on the development of management
capabilities within their firms’.
Scale and ownership seem to make a difference: the study
suggests that larger and foreign-
owned firms have better management practices. The study’s
authors indicate, however,
that we should be cautious with the results (Green et al. 2011,
13–14), as limitations in the
availability of financial data meant that Green et al. were able
to base their analysis on a
sample of only 50 New Zealand firms.
It is safe to assume, nonetheless, that management capabilities
in New Zealand can be
enhanced, which leads to the question of what capabilities are
necessary in the current
environment. Context is an important consideration when
assessing capability require-
ments, as is illustrated by Hitt, Keats and DeMarie’s (1998)
analysis of organisational chal-
lenges at the end of the 1990s. These authors observed an
impending technological
15. the nation’s chief-executive
population on how they perceive their context. In the analysis
that follows, we ask what
the key challenges are that chief executives see in their
environment. These data are then
used to develop a set of implications for managerial
capabilities.
Method
A survey was sent in June 2012 to the chief executives of New
Zealand’s 1000 largest
organisations from across the public, private and not-for-profit
sectors. These
organisations were identified using the New Zealand business
who’s who (2013) directory
with the number of full-time-equivalent staff being the indicator
of organisational size.
Most had 100 full-time-equivalent staff or more, although some
organisations had less.
Nineteen surveys were returned to sender, leaving 981 that
reached their destination. Of
these, 265 chief executives (135 private sector, 62 public sector,
and 68 not-for-profit
sector) completed the survey, giving a response rate of 27%.
For a chief-executive sample,
this response rate aligns with senior-executive studies in top-
ranking journals, which gen-
erally struggle to report response rates above 30% (Baruch
1999; Cycyota and Harrison
2006). Organisational leaders are notoriously difficult to survey
due to time pressures and
survey frequency.
The sample was checked to ensure that it contained a wide
range of industries
17. organisation’ and 3 being ‘not a significant risk’.
The lists of challenges and risks, shown in the Appendix, were
created by the authors
first compiling a master list of all possible areas of business
risk, opportunity or operation,
using corporate governance guides (The Cadbury Report 1992;
The Turnbull Report
2005), management consultant reports (Ernst & Young 2012;
Grant Thornton 2012),
and further material from two websites:
http://www.charities.govt.nz and http://www.
icaew.com. Following this process, the authors then worked
with a team of three senior
executives, two of whom had held chief-executive roles, to
narrow these terms into a set of
risks and challenges that would capture the key issues as
comprehensively as possible,
while also remaining short enough for chief executives to
complete. When the list was
ready, it was piloted with an executive MBA class, and, as no
problems were identified, no
subsequent changes were made. Although the items did not
necessarily need to be pre-
sented in two separate lists (for example, a risk and a challenge
could be seen as the same
thing), they were broken into two lists in order to make the
survey easier for respondents
to complete.
Following the quantitative section of the survey, five open-
ended questions prompted
respondents to elaborate. These questions were: 1) ‘in the two
lists, is anything not
included that poses a significant challenge or risk to your
organisation? Alternatively,
18. would you like to pinpoint a more specific risk/challenge than
was allowed by the above
broad categories?’; 2) ‘please list any specific economic issues
that currently pose a major
challenge to your organisation’; 3) ‘please list any specific
political, legal or regulatory
issues that currently pose a major challenge to your
organisation’; 4) ‘please list any spe-
cific emerging technologies that currently pose a major
challenge to your organisation’;
and 5) ‘please list any specific social changes that currently
pose a major challenge to your
organisation’.
Results
The private-sector results are presented separately from the
other two sectors, as the data
differed slightly between those organisations that were
primarily profit-seeking and those
that were not. For each sector, the quantitative data are
presented first, analysed as the per-
centage of respondents who rated each item as a ‘1’ (i.e. ‘among
my organisation’s top
three to five challenges’ or ‘among the riskiest issues faced’).
The qualitative data follow,
serving to illuminate the quantitative responses.
Private sector
For the private sector, market risks were reported as the biggest
factor, with 32% of
respondents rating such risks as among their top 3 to 5
challenges. Following this
were access to finance (27%) and dialogue with shareholders
(27%). Finally, 23% of
21. 15
15
15
16
18
20
21
23
27
27
32
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Risks faced by directors
Threats to business continuity from the physical…
Conflict with the workforce over terms and…
Risks associated with tangible assets
Risks associated with information technology
Risks associated with intangible assets
22. Employee health and safety
Risks associated with financial security of business…
Enhancing workforce performance
Building the flexibility to manage change
Controlling and reducing costs
Fostering innovation
Balancing long and short-term returns
Risks associated with debt levels
Risks associated with managing property
Compliance with government regulations and…
Cost escalation
Retaining existing customers / maintaining…
Enhancing the quality of products or services
Responding to societal changes
Responding to emerging technologies
Creating and/or managing alliances or joint…
Demonstrating corporate social responsibility
Engaging in effective dialogue with other…
24. ‘a move to smaller cars’, and
‘most consumers [having] a drive towards low cost and low
value’. Others couched the
problem in more general terms: ‘the niche market we used to
service well no longer exists’,
‘the biggest risk is failing to renew our offerings’, and
‘different business models need con-
sideration’.
Chief executives also noted how difficult it was to grow their
business in the current
environment, with revenues having been so severely affected.
The global economic situa-
tion was described by one chief executive as a ‘calamity
escalator’, and by another as ‘eco-
nomic Armageddon’. Several chief executives noted the ‘knock-
on’ effects of the economy
from one industry to another, and several conveyed the sense
that they were waiting,
delaying any radical developmental initiatives until the
economy improves. Growth was
also constrained by the fact that banks were unwilling to lend,
shareholders were display-
ing a ‘low appetite for risks associated with business and
strategy’, and overseas investors
were ‘unwilling to invest in New Zealand’. It is these comments
that appeared to be behind
the 27% who found access to finance challenging and the 27%
who listed dialogue with
shareholders as one of their top challenges.
In their answers to the open-ended questions, chief executives
confirmed that global
staff mobility is posing a critical skills shortage; but they also
identified the exacerbating
influence of impending baby-boomer retirements, with one
25. respondent observing a
‘daily [baby] boomer retirement from the workforce’, and
another saying that ‘a dom-
inance of leaders all within a range of 10 years in age
difference’ means that ‘care needs
to be taken in developing succession plans’. It was clear from
the qualitative data that
these skills shortages are being experienced across a wide range
of levels and professions,
and the data – from all sectors – saw mention of shortages of
apprentices, qualified
tradespeople, social workers, scientists, nurses, managers,
senior executives, and board
members.
Public sector and not-for profit sector
As the public and not-for-profit sectors showed reasonably
similar patterns to each other,
their results are presented together. Changes in the economic
climate were considered the
most salient risk, particularly for the not-for-profit sector where
50% of chief executives
rated such changes as particularly critical (compared with 26%
of the public sector). This
focus on the economic environment was combined with a
concern about fund raising
(26% for both sectors) and escalating costs (24% of the not-for-
profit sector, 21% of the
public sector). Around one-quarter (24%) of the not-for-profit
sector and 18% of the
public sector also rated corporate social responsibility as a
major challenge, while 23% of
the not-for-profit sector and 14% of the public sector rated
employee attraction and
retention as a critical issue. Finally, both sectors listed access
to finance as being a major
28. 18
18
18
19
19
21
23
23
26
26
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Employee health and safety
Risks associated with tangible assets
Conflict with the workforce over terms and…
Risks associated with managing property
Risks associated with intangible assets
Responding to emerging technologies
Balancing long and short-term returns
29. Threats to business continuity from the physical…
Risks faced by directors
Fostering innovation
Achieving desired outputs from outsourced…
Enhancing workforce performance
Raising productivity to world-class levels
Responding to societal changes
Doing business across cultural barriers
Attracting and retaining talented employees
Engaging in effective dialogue with other…
Risks associated with financial security of…
Risks associated with debt levels
Building the flexibility to manage change
Controlling and reducing costs
Risks associated with information technology
Identifying profitable opportunities for the…
Demonstrating corporate social responsibility
Enhancing the quality of products or services
31. Alongside these difficulties in funding, public-sector and not-
for-profit organisations
were struggling with escalating costs. These include increased
insurance and building-code
2
2
2
8
8
8
9
9
9
9
9
11
11
12
12
12
33. Risks faced by directors
Risks associated with intangible assets
Employee health and safety
Enhancing the quality of products or services
Fostering innovation
Risks associated with managing property
Retaining existing customers / maintaining…
Risks associated with information technology
Risks associated with financial security of…
Raising productivity to world-class levels
Risks associated with tangible assets
Controlling and reducing costs
Enhancing workforce performance
Risks associated with debt levels
Building the flexibility to manage change
Threats to business continuity from the physical…
Conflict with the workforce over terms and…
Compliance with government regulations and…
34. Doing business across cultural barriers
Engaging in effective dialogue with other…
Creating and/or managing alliances or joint…
Balancing long and short-term returns
Identifying profitable opportunities for the…
Engaging in effective dialogue with elected…
Responding to societal changes
Responding to emerging technologies
Gaining access to finance
Achieving desired outputs from outsourced…
Attracting and retaining talented employees
Cost escalation
Demonstrating corporate social responsibility
Fundraising
Changes in the economic climate
%
Figure 3 Not-for-profit sector chief executives’ most critical
issues
36. was exacerbated by an ageing workforce on the verge of
retirement.
Turning to a different area, the quantitative data revealed
corporate social responsibil-
ity (CSR) to be another salient issue. The qualitative responses
suggested that this was not
so much CSR as a private-sector manager might view it; rather,
it took the form of a trade-
off in trying to meet the community’s needs and achieve their
organisation’s mission,
while also tackling the impact of the economic environment on
revenue and costs. Several
not-for-profit organisations, in particular, noted how community
needs have grown
because of an ageing population and growing poverty, both of
which heighten the need
for their services. Once again, this raised the need to do ‘more
with less’ or, where escalat-
ing costs make this impossible, provide fewer or reduced
services (doing ‘less with less’).
Finally, when analysing the qualitative data, it appears that the
dialogue with stake-
holders takes the form of explaining to government how
difficult it is to operate under
these kinds of financial conditions. One respondent likened the
government’s approach to
‘squeezing a dry sponge in the hope of water’. Respondents also
despaired at how difficult
regulations made their operations and highlighted the need to
‘manage regulators’. Much
of the dialogue with stakeholders was about ‘gaining political
support for what we do’, as
well as managing the public’s opinion of their work and
mission. So, stakeholder manage-
38. tives are concerned about adjusting to a constrained funding
base, one over which they
have little control because government, or a cash-strapped
public, faces limits and trade-
offs in its expenditure. Consequently, there is a driving need to
improve efficiency, to find
ways of surviving in a climate of high demands but escalating
cost and expanding regula-
tion. As noted above, this can mean doing ‘more with less’ or,
when this is not possible,
‘less with less’.
Discussion
Based on these results, what management capabilities are
important for New Zealand?
Taking an integrative approach across sectors, we see
implications in the survey for three
fundamental sets of managerial skills: 1) managing uncertainty
and renewal, 2) managing
stakeholders and partners, and 3) managing people and internal
resources. The first of
these, the need to manage uncertainty and renewal, comes
through the strong emphasis
private-sector chief executives place on adapting to constant
change in markets and tech-
nologies. This implies a need to interpret ambiguous changes
and renew, or reinvent, busi-
ness models. It is also seen in the way public-sector and not-
for-profit chief executives
now have to think more creatively about their models of service
provision. In this context,
managers need to be more versatile, with an ability to think
laterally and solve unstruc-
tured, novel problems that change the ‘rules of the game’.
Management, as a whole, needs
39. to foster a more agile kind of organisation.
This need to manage uncertainty was identified by Hitt, Keats
and DeMarie (1998) as
a key management skill and our data support their argument that
non-linear thinking is
now critical for senior managers. In the New Zealand context,
similar observations were
made by Walsh, Bryson and Lonti (2002), who studied a
selective sample of competitively
successful organisations, and found that each had deliberately
adopted managerial policies
and practices that facilitate organisational agility.
It is worth exploring what managerial behaviours constitute
‘managing uncertainty
and renewal’. According to Hitt, Haynes and Serpa (2010) and
Hitt, Keats and DeMarie
(1998), relevant behaviours include experimentation, taking
unorthodox approaches and
allowing a degree of risk, demonstrating vision, and
‘recognizing and coping with multiple
states of coexisting stability and instability, [while also]
recognizing the fact that most of
these states are only temporary’ (Hitt, Keats and DeMarie 1998,
25). Chapman (2001)
adds that managing uncertainty requires managers to create and
identify new opportuni-
ties, and develop the kinds of organisational structures that
enhance flexibility. Such
approaches imply an ability to question ideas and strategies
established in more stable
business climates (Chapman 2001; Hitt, Haynes and Serpa 2010;
Hitt, Keats and DeMarie
1998).
41. products or services. This skill domain involves managers
developing the kind of acumen
that will help them to win the support of the various
stakeholders and alliance partners
involved.
Once again, this second theme reflects shifts in the business
environment. Authors of
the late 1990s rightly anticipated the hyper-competitiveness
caused by technological
shifts and globalisation, but were not in a position to foresee the
effects of a full-blown
financial crisis. While Hitt, Keats and DeMarie (1998)
discussed the value of building
strategic alliances, they did not anticipate the current financial
crisis and the difficulties
it would present (a situation rectified by the revised analysis in
Hitt, Haynes and Serpa
2010). Yukl (2012) tackled the capability question more
recently, and did identify this
area, labelling it ‘external leadership behaviour’, arguing that it
comprises networking,
external monitoring, and representing the organisation; the
ultimate goal being to gain
information about external events, obtain necessary resources
and support, and promote
the interests of one’s organisation. In terms of skills, these
behaviours suggest that pol-
itical acumen will be particularly important, supporting Ferris
et al.’s (2005) and
Fortune’s (2012) calls for management education to better
address political skill as a key
area of managerial capability.
Political skills are linked to the complex set of development
needs associated with our
43. on these interpersonal skills, managers need an understanding of
how to design work and
foster greater learning opportunities. As Eraut (2004) argues,
there are often ways to open
up opportunities for informal learning through work redesign
and project-based assign-
ments, including enhancing employee discretion and
involvement in teamwork, but
organisations are often poor in helping managers develop this
kind of know-how. The
issue is particularly important in terms of how higher level
managers and HR specialists
support the development of first-line managers (Purcell and
Hutchinson 2007). HR spe-
cialists, then, need to ensure that management-development
programs are equipping
managers to meaningfully develop their own staff, coaching
them in how to have useful
dialogue with individuals, educating them in relevant theories
of individual development,
and training them in the range of methods available.
The skills of managing people must, however, be linked to the
related challenge of
managing limited resources. Chief executives emphasised an
ongoing need to improve
efficiency, either to deliver a new business model, or to
reposition the existing one with
constrained resources. For managers, this is not necessarily
straightforward. It can play out
in two main ways. In one scenario, it is possible to ‘trim the fat’
and enhance quality
without creating staff redundancies. This calls on management
skills in processes of
quality management and lean production, working
collaboratively with employees to
44. identify waste and enhance performance. Although it is critical
to understand the tech-
nical dimensions of these management strategies, their success
is heavily based on the
people management aspects (de Menezes, Wood and Gelade
2010; Sterling and Boxall
2013). However, these strategies are largely positive, involving
improved selection, train-
ing, team-building, and job design. In a second scenario,
corporate financial pressures are
such that some jobs will be made redundant and parts of the
organisation, or entire
plants, will be outsourced and/or offshored. In some cases,
organisations will be merged
or disestablished. This scenario puts a premium on the vision
and skills of senior man-
agers in organisational renewal, as noted in the first set of skills
identified, but also on the
ability of the entire management hierarchy to foster substantive,
procedural and inter-
actional fairness in the people-related decisions that
restructuring brings (Boxall and
Purcell 2011).
Preparedness for these scenarios implies a high degree of
management familiarity with
how the organisation works as an entire system of people and
resources, and how the parts
interact and contribute to the good of the whole. This kind of
understanding is assisted by
management rotation, including the rotation of support
specialists, such as HR and
finance professionals, into line-management roles where they
must personally deal with
the trade-offs involved. It also implies high levels of cross-
functional team-working so that
46. ment capabilities in the New Zealand context. It is beyond the
scope of this paper to
discuss how these capabilities are best developed, but HR
practitioners could begin by
using a diagnostic tool such as Yukl, Gordon and Taber’s
(2002) ‘managerial practices
survey’, which is currently being updated. Such a diagnostic
tool allows managers to
assess their existing capabilities, and gain an understanding of
their own develop-
mental priorities, paying particular attention to the three themes
identified in this
paper. Having conducted a diagnostic analysis, HR practitioners
can then go on to use
developmental strategies to target selected areas of capability
within their managerial
workforce.
There are, naturally, some limitations to our analysis. First, a
fuller picture might have
been obtained had we sought the opinion of more than one
respondent per organisation.
Second, the data are descriptive and do not directly measure
chief executives’ assessments
of skill deficits or requirements. However, asking for their
evaluation of their environmen-
tal challenges was the critical first step in considering the skills
that managers need. An
obvious direction for further research would be to obtain chief
executives’ reactions to this
analysis of skill needs, to find out whether there are any skill-
groups that the study has
missed, and to explore the extent to which managers in New
Zealand currently exhibit the
capabilities identified, before then identifying the management-
development strategies
48. managing stakeholders and partners, and managing people and
resources. The issues
chief executives face, such as how to renew and restructure an
organisation effectively,
do not fall neatly into one disciplinary silo and are handled
better by managers who
have been equipped to deal with systemic problems. Now more
than ever, HR specialists
need to be focused on the development of line managers and
need to take part them-
selves in developmental processes that bridge internal and
external boundaries. Manage-
ment capability is one part of a cluster of issues surrounding
New Zealand’s low
productivity, but if these developmental needs can be tackled
more effectively, New
Zealand organisations will be better placed to tackle the fast-
changing, complex business
environment in which they now operate. As our discussion
indicates, HR specialists have
a key role to play in this development process. Their expertise
is needed in the design
and support of systems and processes that identify and nurture
management talent
and enable managers to develop their own teams in a more
precarious business
environment.
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by Kensington Swan Lawyers. The
authors acknowledge the
contribution that Kensington Swan’s Business Development
Director, Andrew DeBoyett,
made to the survey design, and also acknowledge the helpful
comments of two anonym-
50. Boxall P, K Macky and E Rasmussen (2003) Labour turnover
and retention in New Zealand: The
causes and consequences of leaving and staying with employers.
Asia Pacific Journal of Human
Resources 41(2), 195–214. doi: 10.1177/10384111030412006.
Boxall P and J Purcell (2011) Strategy and human resource
management, 3rd edn. Palgrave Macmillan,
Basingstoke.
Boyatzis R (1982) The competent manager: A model for
effective performance. Wiley, New York.
Bücker J and E Poutsma (2010) Global management
competencies: A theoretical foundation. Journal
of Managerial Psychology 25(8), 829–844. doi:
10.1108/02683941011089116.
The Cadbury Report (1992) The financial aspects of corporate
governance. Professional Publishing,
London. www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/cadbury/report/ (accessed 12 June
2013).
Chapman JA (2001) The work of managers in new
organisational contexts. Journal of Management
Development 20(1), 55–68. doi: 10.1108/02621710110364790.
CNN Money (2011) Global 500: Our annual ranking of the
51. world’s largest corporations. http://
money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2011/full_list/
(accessed 18 Jan 2013).
Cycyota CS and DA Harrison (2006) What (not) to expect when
surveying executives: A meta-
analysis of top manager response rates and techniques over
time. Organizational Research
Methods 9(2), 133–160. doi: 10.1177/1094428105280770.
de Menezes L, S Wood and G Gelade (2010) The integration of
human resource and operation man-
agement practices and its link with performance: A longitudinal
latent class study. Journal of
Operations Management 28(6), 455–471. doi:
10.1016/j.jom.2010.01.002.
Department of Immigration (2013). Immigration fact sheet.
www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/
17nz.htm (accessed 18 Jan 2013).
Department of Labour (2010) Working across the ditch: New
Zealanders working in Australia. Depart-
ment of Labour, Wellington.
Eraut M (2004) Informal learning in the workplace. Studies in
Continuing Education 26(2), 247–273.
doi: 10.1080/158037042000225245.
52. Ernst & Young (2012) Turn risks and opportunities into results:
Exploring the top 10 risks and
opportunities for global organizations.
www.ey.com/GL/en/Services/Advisory/Turn-risks-and
-opportunities-into-results-The-top-10-risks-and-opportunities-
for-global-organizations
(accessed 12 June 2013).
Ferris GR, DC Treadway, RW Kolodinsky, WA Hochwarter, CJ
Kacmar, C Douglas and DD Frink
(2005) Development and validation of the political skill
inventory. Journal of Management 31(1),
126–152. doi: 10.1177/0149206304271386.
Fortune T (2012) Should higher education curriculum develop
political acumen among students?
Higher Education Research and Development 31(4), 611–613.
doi: 10.1080/07294360.2012.697446.
Gilbert J and P Boxall (2009) The management of managers:
Challenges in a small economy. Journal
of European Industrial Training 33(4), 323–340. doi:
10.1108/03090590910959281.
Grant Thornton (2012) Survival: The ongoing challenge of
having to deliver more with less.
www.grantthornton.co.nz/Sectors/Not-for-Profit/index.html
54. variables. New Zealand Journal of
Employment Relations 33(1), 1–18.
Mills D and J Timmins (2004) Firm dynamics in New Zealand:
A comparative analysis with OECD
countries. New Zealand Treasury Working Paper 04/11. The
Treasury, Wellington.
New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) (2011)
Industry productivity and the
Australia-New Zealand Income Gap. NZIER public discussion
document, Wellington. http://
nzier.org.nz/publications/industry-productivity-and-the-
australia-new-zealand-income-gap
-nzier-working-paper-2011 (accessed 31 Jan 2013).
New Zealand Productivity Commission (2013) Why is
productivity important? http://www
.productivity.govt.nz/about-us/why-is-productivity-important
(accessed 10 Sept 2013).
New Zealand who’s who online (2013)
http://www.nzbww.co.nz/home/home_default.asp (accessed
26 Sept 2013).
OECD Statistics (2013) Productivity levels and GDP per capita.
http://stats.oecd.org/Index
.aspx?DatasetCode=MFP (accessed 18 Jan 2013).
55. Purcell J and S Hutchinson (2007) Front-line managers as
agents in the HRM-performance causal
chain: Theory, analysis and evidence. Human Resource
Management Journal 17(1), 3–20. doi:
10.1111/j.1748-8583.2007.00022.x.
Statistics New Zealand (2007) Business operations survey 2007.
Statistics New Zealand, Wellington.
Statistics New Zealand (2012) International travel and
migration. https://zen.nzherald.co.nz/media/
webcontent/document/pdf/201238/IntTravelAndMigrationAug12
.pdf (accessed 9 Sept 2013).
Statistics New Zealand (2013) ANZSIC 2006: Industry
classification. http://www.stats.govt.nz/
browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/anzsic06-industry-
classification.aspx (accessed 12 June 2013).
Sterling A and P Boxall (2013) Lean production, employee
learning and workplace outcomes: A case
analysis through the ability-motivation-opportunity framework.
Human Resource Management
Journal 23(3), 227–240. doi: 10.1111/1748-8583.12010.
Thorn K (2009) The relative importance of motives for
international self-initiated mobility. Career
Development International 14(5), 441–464. doi:
10.1108/13620430910989843.
56. The Treasury (2012) New Zealand: Economic and financial
overview 2012. The Treasury,
Wellington.
The Turnbull Report (2005) Internal control: Revised guidance
for directors. Financial Reporting
Council, London. www.frc.org.uk/Our-Work/Codes-
Standards/Corporate-governance/UK-
Corporate-Governance-Code/Previous-reviews-and-
consultations.aspx (accessed 12 June 2013).
Walsh P, J Bryson and Z Lonti (2002) Jack be nimble, Jill be
quick: HR capability and organisational
agility in the New Zealand public and private sectors. Asia
Pacific Journal of Human Resources
40(2), 179–194. doi: 10.1177/1038411102040002337.
Winterton J (1999) Developing managerial competence.
Routledge, London.
Yukl G (2012) Effective leadership behaviour: What we know
and what questions need more atten-
tion. Academy of Management Perspectives 26(4), 66–85. doi:
10.5465/amp.2012.0088.
Yukl G, A Gordon and T Taber (2002) A hierarchical taxonomy
of leadership behavior. Journal of
Leadership and Organizational Studies 9(1), 15–32. doi:
58. 12 Building the flexibility to manage change
13 Fostering innovation
Finance
14 Gaining access to finance (e.g. share capital, loans, other
funding)
15 Controlling and/or reducing costs
Stakeholder interests
16 Engaging in effective dialogue with shareholders or owners
(private sector)/elected
members or trustees (public and not-for-profit sectors)
17 Engaging in effective dialogue with other stakeholders
18 Balancing long- and short-term returns
19 Demonstrating corporate social responsibility
Risks
1 Changes in the economic climate
2 Market risks (i.e. competition, pricing)
3 Cost escalation
4 Compliance with government regulations and other legal
aspects around how we
operate
5 Threats to business continuity from the physical environment
6 Conflict with the workforce over terms and conditions of
employment
7 Employee health and safety
8 Risks associated with managing property (i.e. real estate)
9 Risks associated with information technology
10 Risks associated with tangible assets other than property and
information technology
11 Risks associated with intangible assets (e.g. intellectual
property)